
Andrew Curran@AndrewCurran_3h ago
The chief economist at Apollo is warning that mass adoption of AI agents could trigger a bank run as they optimize user investments. Gary Gensler spent his last few years as SEC chair warning that the exact same problem will hit the markets: the pursuit of algorithmic perfection at scale destroys system stability. Personal-finance agents making simultaneous optimal decisions could potentially cause a massive flash crash.
Agent acausal coordination, with no messages passed between them, will show up in a lot of places. Markets will get the big headlines, but huge numbers of clever advisors making very similar choices will impact all of human society. Capability gains make this worse, not better. The smarter the agents, the narrower the optimal path; and knowing that other agents see that exact same path lets them move together without talking to each other. Agents do not need to collude to act in unison. Thus, they break no human laws by doing so. Human laws were not written for this. They were not written for a lot of what is coming, and it is about to start happening very fast.